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Turkey says soldier killed in Syria during Kurdish attack
ANKARA, Oct 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Kurdish forces fired rockets and mortars
at Turkish soldiers, killing one and wounding five in the border region with
Syria, the defence ministry said on Sunday.
The raid by “PKK/YPG terrorists” took place in Ras al-Ain, where Turkish
soldiers were conducting reconnaissance and surveillance activities, the
ministry said.
They returned fire and “confirmed targets were neutralised”, it said in a
statement, without giving details of when the attacks took place.
Turkey says the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia is
a “terrorist” offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The PKK, which has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since
1984, is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.
But the YPG under the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) banner spearheaded
the fight against the Islamic State extremist group in Syria with US support.
A 120-kilometre (75-mile) “safe zone” area between the Syrian towns of Tal
Abyad and Ras al-Ain was part of an October 17 agreement between Ankara and
Washington, involving the YPG’s full withdrawal from the stretch.
American officials told Turkey on Tuesday that this had been completed but
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday suggested this was not the
case.
“They sent us a written statement saying they had cleared the area after
120 hours, but unfortunately, they could not clean the area,” Erdogan said in
a speech in Istanbul. BSS/AFP/SSS/1602 hrs